Friday at Lollapalooza 2009

by Leigh Belz

Lollapalooza 2009 started off with a drop. Or a thousand of them. By 11 a.m., Chicago's Grant Park was being covered by light sheets of rain that had the two of us in bright yellow ponchos. (Picked up as a precaution at the Walgreens on the way to the field, they turned out to be the best eight dollars we spent that day.)

But though the elements didn't exactly cooperate, festivalgoers like us were undaunted on Friday. We started our day with The Henry Clay People and then caught Hey Champ at the southern main stage. The electro-pop group was the perfect jump-start to what was to become a pretty long, wet day.

Hey Champ

From Hey Champ, we moved north to see a bit of the Paul Green School of Rock All Stars--who, as their name suggests, truly rocked. They had people singing along with their cover of Springsteen's "Born to Run." From there, we moved to the northern main stage to catch a little of Zap Mama while we had some lunch and then to The Gaslight Anthem back on the southern main stage. Being that half of our duo is a Jersey native and proud of it (and had just been primed with some Bruce
goodness), the Garden State's own Gaslight Anthem was the first can't
miss show of the day. With a solid set of rock, the hard working Jersey
boys lived up to expectations. (Don't know them? Check them out on MySpace and check out "The '59 Sound.")

The Gaslight Anthem

As we walked over to see Ben Folds, we couldn't help but enjoy the soothing sounds of Bon Iver. Not exactly energizing festival fare, but Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago is definitely good on a quiet night at home.

We walked in to Ben Folds
50% full fan (Leigh) and 50% casual listener (Danielle). When we left
the stage (we were lucky enough to get to stand on a riser on the
actual stage for this one), we were 100% full fans. Ben played songs
from his latest album, past solo efforts as well as a few Ben Folds Five classics ("Kate," "Narcolepsy").
By the time he went on, the wind and rain had gotten pretty intense,
but the huge crowd amassed at the southern main stage sang along for
every song.

After Ben, it was pretty much pouring. We huddled under a tent, still poncho'd up, and listened to the soothing sounds of Fleet Foxes and Andrew Bird. We needed to conserve our energy. The Kings of Leon were headlining in a few hours.

At 7 p.m., with an hour and a half until KOL showtime, we got in line to
stand on the stage during the Kings' set. We waited. And waited. And the line grew. Someone even offered us $200 for our place in line. But we were determined to be on that stage and see the Followill brothers (and cousin.) And we were victorious. At 8 p.m. we hit the stage riser and at 8:30 the Kings of Leon followed. Also, it finally stopped raining, which was pretty excellent.

Kings of Leon

Opening with "Be Somebody," the Nashville quartet played nearly every song on their latest album, Only by the Night, as well as hits from Aha Shake Heartbreak and Because of The Times. Standouts for us? "Use Somebody" (which they saved until the end) and "On Call."

The night had picked up. And there was more music to be heard. On the way back to the hotel, we ran into The Virgins -- one of our favorite hometown bands. The guys charmed us one more set before bedtime -- they played a Rock the Vote event at the Hard Rock Hotel at midnight that was energetic but too short. Oh well. There were still two more days of music left.